Wednesday - September 25

small loop back to house for rest room. Then an easy loop around the neighborhood. Brick run. Felt slow. Was faster than it felt.

odd day. Bike slow, run fast. (relatively speaking)

There is no past we can bring back by longing for it. - From Best Marigold Hotel.

I've been unloading the entertainment center, and packing. U-Haul van today. Load it, drive to Roswell, Business meeting in the morning, then drive the stuff to Ruidoso and unload. Oh, and run 2.5 hrs and swim one in the morning. My current idea is to drive out to Bottomless lakes in the early morning and run then swim. I've got to work the math and see what time I've got to get up in the morning.

Hope I can find someone to help me load the van this afternoon.

I'm getting pretty jammed up, with trying to do peak training and move, and still keep my clients happy.

Sunday - September 22

Light head wind going out made it pleasant. After the turn around it was downhill but with the tiny wind at my back pretty hot. 80 degrees and no air moving while running. Easy run, but hard at the end. Still tired from long ride on Friday? - not much difference in the splits.

Swim

58m

3132.00 yards

01m 51s /100 yards

OWS at Balmorhea springs. Awesome magical place. Small 'reef looking' fish hanging around. the bottom is up to 25 feet deep where the springs come into the 'pool' Rocky bottom there, but brilliant green sea grass along the main channel. Fish feeding on it. sometimes little bubbles come up from the grass. There were a few black catfish along the bottom in the outgoing channel. Crystal clear water. Kids playing in the water. Girls in bikinis. At one point I swam into a whole school of the little 2 to 3 inch fish. So pretty and just hanging around, I had to stop and look.

72 - 76 degree water, just right for the wetsuit.

Not sure how good the Garmin distance is. The map shows me swimming out of the pool and all over the place. It seems about right while in the pool, but the map is sure goofy.

I was totally ready to be finished so I swam another couple laps easy. ~ 240 yards across.

Saturday - September 21

Did the welcome speech and started the riders on the tour. Drove SAG until 4:30. Quick bite of lunch in town. Again poor nutrition planning on my part. I was starving by noon, no lunch till 5:00.

Then back for the group dinner and 'awards' and door prizes presentation. It all went pretty smoothly. We had a great group of volunteers. Shut it down at about 9:00 and went over to Doug's trailer for a beer.

Awesome Day! Weather was absolutely perfect, clear air and cool for the riders. Everyone came back with all their skin on their bodies! That's the most important thing.

Friday - September 20

Bike

8h 47m

135.50 miles

15.43 Mi/hr

one of those epic type of rides.
Started off cool and cloudy with the clouds rolling and flowing over the hills. Rode without rain for the first hour or so. Then it started raining lightly. In the half light, through rain covered glasses I didn't see a big rock and hit it hard. Pinchflatted. by the time I had it fixed it was raining hard and the cold wind was picking up. Put on my wind/rain jacket that I bought after this ride last year. Awesome!

Stopped for a little bit in Marathon for food and drink. The rain pretty much let up for about a 1/2 hour. Then solid rain for the long, long uphill out of Marathon back to Alpine, the group pretty much stuck together.

After a break at Alpine the sun came out a bit while we fixed Doug's flat. Then we had a great tail wind leg for more than an hour. For some reason I dropped, but I was riding 22 - 24 mph over to Marfa. Big tail wind.

The wind shifted to the north and we headed out directly into it leaving Marfa. Only 22 miles but into that head wind then driving rain for almost two hours was brutal. At the end Doug was pulling at 14 and it was all I could do to hang on to the back. Tough, tough ride.

10:12 elapsed time for the ride.

I had to hurry over to registration, already an hour late. Could not find my recovery drink. Only Pizza at registration. Poor menu choices for me.